Cops test-drive preemptive policing

ALHAMBRA -- The Alhambra Police Department is the first law-enforcement agency in Southern California to fully implement Predictive Policing, a cloud-based software that forecasts areas where crimes are likely to be committed.

Some divisions in the Los Angeles Police Department also use PredPol, which was developed by a team of mathematicians and social scientists at UCLA, Santa Clara University and UC Irvine, but Alhambra has pioneered city-wide implementation.

"It's not about predicting who is going to commit a crime. It's about where. It creates an opportunity for police officers to get in front of those crimes and deter them," said co-founder Jeffrey Brantingham, a UCLA anthropology professor.

"This is a way of using the data that the police department already have about where and when crimes are occurring to essentially forecast when and where future crimes are expected to occur. "

PredPol crunches about five years of law-breaking data to map probable crime spots. This policing algorithm has become a practical tool only in the last two years, although it has been in development for the last seven years, Brantingham said. Places such as Seattle and Santa Cruz already use it and data show that law-enforcement officers perform six times better when they use PredPol, Brantingham said.

But he emphasized the software is a tool that is ineffective without skillful officers, and the preemptive program does not ask agencies to allocate all of their officers in one neighborhood while abandoning another.

Because Alhambra implemented the program about five months ago, Police Chief Mark Yokoyama said it's a little too early to see its impact. However, when he compared numbers from 2012, Yokoyama noted that residential theft has decreased by 11 percent, car burglaries by 20 percent and grand theft auto by 10 percent since the program started.

"The only difference between this year and last year is utilizing PredPol in our policing strategies," Yokoyama said.

At 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. daily his agency prints a map that compares the most up-to-date crime statistics with historic figures to tell police what 500-by-500-square-feet area they should pay attention to.

PredPol has made finding criminals easier, Yokohama said, but he doubts the higher efficiency will lead to layoffs within his department.

"We still rely upon our police officers' intuition, knowledge and personal data," Yokoyama said. "PredPol might tell us here's an area to focus on today. That may be different from what a police officer knows based on hot-spot data within the last 30 days. "

Some Alhambra residents expressed reservations about the new program.

Kelsea Perez, 21, said this new software is a double-edged sword that can lead to discrimination.

"It can allow for the homeless who live in this area to be pushed away," Perez said. "(Law enforcement's) goal is prevention, so they're going to do whatever they can. "

Grinnell Almy, a computer programmer who works in Alhambra, said he sees the possibility of targeting ethnic minorities, even in a city where about 55 percent of residents are Asian.

"Whenever you use technology, you need to be careful to guard against racial profiling," he said. "Anything can be used wrongly. You have to be aware and take it into account. "

Brantingham said PredPol doesn't profile individuals; since it collects data only on where and when a type of crime has happened it doesn't target offenders, races or the poor, he said.

Yokohama said preliminary results are very promising and he doesn't see any negatives in using PredPol.

Using the software as a guide, police presence has been increased in certain areas, he said.

"It has made our officers more visible within the residential areas than they have been in the past," he said. "Crime prevention is what we're looking to out of this. I don't think we'll see a rise in arrests. "

Lien Tran, 45, who lives by Almansor Park, said she's noticed a difference.

Her car window was smashed last year and broken windows at Almansor Park were a regular occurrence, Tran said, adding that she hasn't noticed broken glass in the streets since the program started.